Paul Kidd - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

He slammed down into the gully, with Cinders a hot, smothering cloak across his back. Henry heaved Cinders off himself, then tore open the neck fastenings of his elven mail, trying desperately to breathe. The portable hole landed on the ground, and after a moment, Polk managed to scrabble into view. Exhausted and bedraggled, the badger could only cling weakly to the rim of the hole.

"Son? Son, are you all right?"

"F-fine!" Henry's lungs hurt so much he was about to throw up. "Is… everyone… alive?"

"Bad. Real bad. Enid's getting fever from her wound, son. Nothing I can do."

Polk tried to climb over the lip of the hole, but he was too exhausted to make it. Henry heaved Polk out, then lay on his back crippled by cramps. The badger stirred, almost too weak to move. "It's fine, son. I can run now. Just need a bit of rest and… and a restorative libation."

"We used all the whiskey to clean the wounds."

Polk winced and slumped in gray disappointment.

"That hits hard, son." The badger worked his mouth. "Well, give me water, and I'll be fine to run."

They both lay there, exhausted, in a night so dark they couldn't even see the sky. Above them, Cinders's tail drooped in misery.

Cinders worried… Cinders scared.

"They'll be all right. We can fix them. The Justicar will know what to do." Henry groped for his canteen, but it was empty. "He'll be up soon, then he'll tell us what to do."

Cinders kept watch, his silhouette merely a darker patch of night atop a rock. Henry lay beside the panting badger, dazed and shocked, until finally he blinked and felt his mind grow clear.

"They're all going to die. If we can't save them, then they're all going to die."

Polk said nothing, choosing instead to gnaw his claws and try to think. Henry blinked blindly out into the dark.

"He knew him. The Justicar knew that monster."

"Workings of fate, son."

"No. They fought the same way. Didn't you see? The blade style-it was almost identical! I've never even heard of anyone who can use the sword like the Justicar."

Exhausted, Polk scarcely had the energy to argue. "Jus is a hero, son. He doesn't hold with monsters."

"But it went straight for him. Only for him." Sitting up straight, Henry suddenly saw it all clearly in his head. "Tielle was sent to kill Escalla. Do you think this other monster was sent for the Justicar?"

"By who, son? Who?"

"Lolth."

Rolling over, dazed and damp, Polk said, "Lolth's a demigod, son. Why would she worry her skull over us?"

Remembering back, Henry held his head and tried to reason it out. "Polk? We blew her body up, and… and I think that whole drow temple might have gone up in flames. Would that make Lolth mad?"

Polk blinked. "Son, that would make her bare-arsed, shoot-my-nanny, bat-crap, barking mad."

Polk stiffened, seeing the whole plot before him. He laid a paw upon Henry's arm and stared into the dark.

"Son! This is great, son! Do you know what this means?"

"Um, no."

"Son, this will be the making of us! If by a man's enemies ye shall know him, then we've made the big time at last!"

Henry resisted an urge to bash Polk across the skull. "Polk! Our friends are hurt real bad!"

"Oh, we'll fix that, son! We can just ask the Jus-"

Polk's sentence died mid-stride. The badger subsided and went back to gnawing nervously on his claws.

A stark wind knifed across the lip of the gully, making little stones shift and rattle. Henry kept stiff and still, reaching a hand out to Benelux, which now lay through Henry's belt.

"Cinders?"

Wind. No corpse. No faerie. Cinders smell no animals at all.

Benelux cleared her voice and said, Henry, my dear. Do you think we should perhaps get moving?

"Soon." Henry could scarcely sit, let alone walk or run. "Yeah, soon."

To buy a little time, the young man wiped his mouth and tried to clear his thoughts.

"Where should we run to? What do we do?" He looked at the sword. "Benelux? Any ideas?"

Our comrades require immediate attention.

"But Jus is hurt! How is he going to use his healing magic?"

Polk coughed.

"Your thinking's flawed, son! You listen too much to the Justicar. You have to think on your feet. Improvise!" The badger tried to rise, but only managed to roll over. "Use yer logic. We have a job: Gotta heal the boy and the two girls. Now if we don't have the tools to do the job, then we have to borrow 'em from someone who has."

Benelux seemed suitably impressed. Oh. Quite succinct. Nicely reasoned.

"Thank you kindly. I'm a thinkin' man, Ma'am!" Polk scratched his belly with his claws. "Now, we can't have Henry learn the magic. We can't go to a town for a healer. So that means we need a miracle."

"A miracle?"

"Yep." Polk folded up his paws. "Happens all the time. Somewhere around here, there'll be a healing fountain, a wandering priest, a magic potion, or a sacred spirit just itching to heal our pals! All we have to do is find it!"

Henry gnawed his knuckles in despair and said, "Find it? That could take days!"

"Hell no, son! We need to be more efficient in our technique." Polk rose and took Henry underneath one furry arm.

"Son, what we need here is a crystal ball."

"Idiots! Spread out and look for a trail!" Tielle hovered above her chain monks. She was scuffed, scratched, bedraggled, and tired. Half her spells had been wasted, and the search was proving more difficult than she thought. "Come on! Keep moving! Go!"

The night was pitch dark. Tielle's servants, still numbering about thirty, clanked and clattered up the hills, blundering through brush. Tielle snapped her fingers, and a chain monk brought her large crystal ball. The faerie stared into the bauble with a scowl. She stiffened, clearly liking what she saw. An extravagant hiss commanded her minions to silence.

The crystal ball glowed red, showing an image of Escalla sleeping by a campfire. Tielle jerked her head up and whirred high into the air, spying a faint glow of hidden fire over the next ridge. She descended and signaled her troops to encircle the area.

The chain monks clanked and rattled their way off into the night, heading for the distant glow of a small campfire.

Henry had hidden himself just as the Justicar had taught him: He lay buried beneath a thin layer of soil and scree. As Tielle and her monks drew away, he carefully lifted his head and said, "She took the bait!"

Excellent.

Benelux had accepted Henry as her bearer as a temporary measure. An apprentice warrior was far, far below her station, but needs must as the doppleganger drives. Henry rose carefully from the soil, trying to let it slide gracefully off Cinders's back, but the resultant rockfall sounded shockingly loud.

How did the Justicar do it? Silence spells? Magical rings? The big man could move in total silence when he needed to. Horribly conscious of every snapping twig, Henry slithered off in pursuit of the chain monks, his pulse hammering like a mad thing in his throat. Tielle could kill him with a single gesture. The chain monks could flail him to death. Henry crept carefully in pursuit of the enemy, painfully aware that this was a very stupid thing to do.

He managed to keep Tielle in view. Pure white and alarmingly under-clad, she showed up in the darkness as a pale little shape. The hellish clamor of the chain monks apparently deafened her to the sounds of Henry creeping quietly behind her. Chain monks paused at the edge of the hill, then charged down upon a little campfire hidden in a gully full of stones. Chains whipped through the air, smashing into rocks and stones, lighting the night with sparks. The chain monks shrieked and gibbered, turning the gully into absolute chaos.